10-10-2011, 01:39 PM
Hi Ian,
In my opinion the 'problem' (if it can be called that) with your series is the composition. I would put aside all light/colour considerations for a moment and look carefully at each image: try to discover the 'subject' or focus point of each image, where the lines take your eye, and where the horizon 'feels right' (most of them feel 'squeezed' vertically, rather than achieving the (quite difficult) intensity of a narrow band of sky).
In most of the images (again just my view), there are a lot of nice contrasts, but actually nothing really interesting to hold the viewer's gaze (though I would consider re-framing no. 2 to see if it works - somehow the person in the image gives it an added dimension). Some technical tweaks might give the images more 'pop', but I don't think they will solve the underlying issue of composition.
As you say yourself, they're too similar to form a collection - which itself a quite a tricky notion. Whereas the most basic form of collection can be several pictures of trees, or houses, or a certain landscape; there can be much deeper layers to how your images form relationships. In the case of your shots it could be the shapes formed by boundaries between the rocks and the water, or the linear interplay between the rows of rocks and the horizon - any number of graphical contrasts.
So it's often about choosing a particular aspect of the scene that has many facets, and shooting a series to illustrate those facets.
In my opinion the 'problem' (if it can be called that) with your series is the composition. I would put aside all light/colour considerations for a moment and look carefully at each image: try to discover the 'subject' or focus point of each image, where the lines take your eye, and where the horizon 'feels right' (most of them feel 'squeezed' vertically, rather than achieving the (quite difficult) intensity of a narrow band of sky).
In most of the images (again just my view), there are a lot of nice contrasts, but actually nothing really interesting to hold the viewer's gaze (though I would consider re-framing no. 2 to see if it works - somehow the person in the image gives it an added dimension). Some technical tweaks might give the images more 'pop', but I don't think they will solve the underlying issue of composition.
As you say yourself, they're too similar to form a collection - which itself a quite a tricky notion. Whereas the most basic form of collection can be several pictures of trees, or houses, or a certain landscape; there can be much deeper layers to how your images form relationships. In the case of your shots it could be the shapes formed by boundaries between the rocks and the water, or the linear interplay between the rows of rocks and the horizon - any number of graphical contrasts.
So it's often about choosing a particular aspect of the scene that has many facets, and shooting a series to illustrate those facets.